A podcast all about Japanese cartoons and comics as discussed by three self-proclaimed experts in the world of anime and manga! Plus anime news / reviews, coverage of classic anime, hentai / yaoi, and much, much more. Updated every week. We hope.

Review: Black Jack (0:00 - 49:25)Clarissa reviews the only Black Jack anime that was commercially released in the US: the 1990s OAVs as well as the 1990s movie. It's a somewhat different take on the character, since it's by the dynamic duo who brought us such fine classics as Golgo 13, Space Adventure Cobra, and possibly Mad Bull 34. In other words, this anime is awesome. If you already know the basic premise of Black Jack, feel free to skip to about the 25 minute mark.

Promo: World's Manliest Podcast (49:35 - 50:00)Listen up. All you people who listen to Fast Karate then run off and start your own podcasts need to understand something: Dave and Joel don't love you. Have THEY ever played your promo? HUH? That's right, they have not. They only want you for your body, whereas the AWO wants you for your eternal souls. This is a podcast by two foreigners screaming about awesome things in an disorganized fashion. Daryl tried to set them straight by informing them that Nastasha Zabigov > Rain Mikamura, but they just wouldn't listen. Perhaps playing their promo will make them live up to their names. If so, we demand this as tribute. Also, if not.

Closing (50:00 - 54:04)It took an entire month for us to release what is technically one single episode. How much lower can we go at this point, really? The answer: our second all-mecha episode! Daryl's turning all the dials to 11 and setting his age past 99 to 999 when he reviews Godannar, Clarissa's doing her part to keep Masami Obari employed by reviewing Gravion and its followup Gravion Zwei, and Gerald realized that reviewing Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann would make people actually WANT to listen, so he's breaking our Yoshiyuki Tomino seal with Space Runaway Ideon. Be fortunate, all of you, that we no longer live in the era of violence.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Digg Podcasts is apparently too dumb to create new items for feed entries that don't have unique URLs associated with them, and since there's over 75 comments in the previous post, we may as well start a new one for what's technically the same show only not. This is Part 2 of our 60th show and Osamu Tezuka spotlight, containing Gerald's news segment as well as his review of Vertical Inc's release of the manga Apollo's Song.

Let's News! (0:00 - 36:09)People in Singapore aren't exactly happy about all this Odex stuff and are willing to break the law by exercising their non-right to assemble in public to convey their sentiment. As far as being particularly old news even by our standards, DMP is now including the Japanese publisher logos on the front covers of their books, and Genshiken Season 2 has begun in Japan. Pity that Japanese otaku care more about Kujibiki Unbalance, but that's no doubt due to the fact that Genshiken lost its edge once everyone started having sex with each other. I guess that's what happens when you follow the path of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure author and Purple Rain enthusiast Hirohiko Araki, who drew the cover to a American scientific journal.

None of that is related to Osamu Tezuka, which is what we should be talking about. However, Tezuka Productions is working on color adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's manga. This is an undertaking on the level of digitally remastering and restoring the entire Shaw Brothers film library. For further proof of how far behind the times we are, Daryl reminds everyone of the true definition of moe (bottom of page), since that is what otaku opt to experience instead of love lest they run the risk of their lives ending up like Apollo's Song. The rest of the news centers on the Geneon situation, and by that we mean "it's us saying 'we don't know!' for 20 minutes. That everybody got on Daryl's case for mispronouncing Barefoot Gen but nobody cares about how Geneon is pronounced is no doubt indicative of the real cause behind all this mayhem.

Promo: R5 Central (36:09 - 37:10)Mike Dent, a man so ashamed of his Xbox Live Gamertag that he doesn't want anyone to know what it is until he can cough up the $10 or however much it costs to get it changed, has realized that the genius of nominating one's own self for an award is that you can go around and state that you're award-nominated! Man. Why didn't we think of that?

Review: Apollo's Song (manga) (37:10 - 54:38)We put that Amazon link in here three times in a feeble attempt to stave off getting emails asking where one can purchase this. In any case, Gerald reviews this publication from Vertical Inc since we figure that with all the stuff they send us, the least we could do is actually read the entire things and discuss them at length. Though given what we discussed in the news segment, perhaps companies prefer to get buzz about releases within a week of the thing actually coming out. Too bad! Daryl should probably get a review of Andromeda Stories Volume 1 up, and now that the new Toward the Terra TV series is over, he can probably talk Volumes 2 and 3 of To Terra as well. Here's the link to the blog post on Apollo's Song Daryl mentioned. Curse Jog for getting his in-depth reviews out so shortly after release!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Sure we talk about him a lot, but for our sixtieth episode we've decided to devote the entire show to talking about the God of Manga himself, Osamu Tezuka. Daryl's reviewing the Astro Boy TV series (take your pick), Clarissa's reviewing the Black Jack OAVs and movie, and Gerald's reviewing the manga Apollo's Song.

Show notes will be put up...later! Otaku USA doesn't write itself, you know!

Introduction (0:00 - 43:27)Does Stan even remember his role in the Ozone Commandos? Wait, nobody can remember it, since it wasn't released [yet]! In the emails, we're asked our opinion on Fushigi Yuugi (which is stillreallyexpensive!). Short answer: Yu Watase is a hack. Can we recommend good romance anime? Short answer: no. What's our thoughts on fanfiction? Short answer: just look at all the slash-related Livejournal communities Clarissa's a member of. Wait, that's not a very short list after all! It took us nearly 45 minutes to say this!

Promo: Greatest Movie EVER! (43:27 - 44:05)It's the Big Month of Dick over at the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast, where they're talking about film adaptations of Philip K. Dick exclusively! Featuring a bunch of guest reviewers, including Jeff "Rich Lather" Tatarek, who made this promo instead of making his own podcast. As late as we are in getting shows up, his Robot Carnival review still isn't there! In any case, we remain satisfied that people start off by listening to AWO, hear promos for Dave and Joel, Greatest Movie EVER!, Lather's Blather, etc. then determine that they're more entertaining to listen to than us (and shorter, too!) and stop listening to us. If we were concerned about listenership, we wouldn't be pulling stunts like...

Review: Astro Boy (44:05 - 1:39:07)Daryl doesn't care that absolutely nobody in America cares about Astro Boy. He's going to talk about the Birth of Astro Boy storyline as portrayed in the original manga, the 1960s TV series, the 1980s TV series, and the 2003 TV series, no matter how many people don't give a crap. The cool people are interested and not at all bored to tears. Both of them.

For more information about the 2003 Astro Boy series, be sure to listen to AWO Show #37 where we interviewed Marc Handler, the Executive Story Editor for the series. Look forward to a follow-up interview once it's finished being edited!

We'll post the Black Jack and Apollo's Song bits later. And you didn't really think we had nothing more to say about this Geneon situation, did you?